France / 08-10-2015

Alain Soral convicted for antisemitic remarks

The court of appeals of Paris confirmed today the conviction of the
radical right-wing author Alain Soral, requiring him to pay a fine of 6,000
euros for inciting hatred against the journalist Frédéric Haziza and against
the Jews as well.

Moreover, Alain Soral will also be required to
delete the words he wrote about Mr. Haziza from videos distributed over the
Internet. In a video published in December 2012, Alain Bonnet, a.k.a. Soral,
his nickname, called Frédéric Haziza, a journalist at the parliamentary channel
(LCP) and radio J, "Stupid of Month" since he refused to receive him
in order to talk about his latest book, and reprimanded him for "conveying messages of hate, violence, racism and
antisemitism".

On his website, Alain Soral described Mr. Haziza as
"a journalist of a community about which we have no right to talk about,
[a community] which is occupying... Yes, that's the correct word... We are
talking about occupation... almost the whole ideological structure of France"
and is carrying out "a work of tribal censorship".

In the verdict, the court of appeals of Paris ruled that the words
of Alain Soral are within the bounds of "the most stereotypical
antisemitism, and constitute a libel against a community, libelously claiming
that it is supposedly seeking to deny the French their freedom of
expression". As for the anti-Zionism which Alain Soral referred to, the
Court, the court is of the opinion that it is literally "the outworn
excuse of that very antisemitism".

Furthermore, Alain Soral was required to pay Mr.
Frédéric Haziza damages amounting to 3000 Euros, and 1 Euro to five
organizations involved in the struggle against racism.